The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) have been reshelved pending further review and revision. Following the blackouts of Jan. 18, opposition to the two digital media bills grew from 31 opponents to 101 according to Propublica. The flip on SOPA and PIPA has been touted as a huge victory from the standpoint of the net’s ability to effect meaningful change in politics. However, this development comes with more of a feeling of momentary relief than of a complete victory.
Last November Lawrence Lessig, a renowned digital media lawyer, took his blog out of hibernation following a two-year silence to weigh in on the SOPA issue.
“SOPA is just the latest, but in many ways, the most absurd campaign in the endless saga of America’s copyright wars,” Lessig wrote.
In many ways, Lessig was and is right. The United States is an active member of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) signed by several nations including Canada. Ed Fast, Canada’s International Trade Minister signed our nation onto ACTA this October. Participation in ACTA means pushing for legislation which matches the demands of the agreement which can be found online.
If this SOPA thing is a just another chapter of the political drama in the US, Canadians shouldn’t be too concerned, should they?
“Canadians should be concerned,” says David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic.
“This bill could affect Canadian businesses (who are included amongst the targets of the bill), and will likely be a feature of future U.S. lobbying on international standards of IP protection.”
Bill C-11, or the “Copyright Modernization Act”’, is the Canadian equivalent to SOPA, though it’s not nearly as big of a looming threat as its southern counterpart.
“The injunction provisions targeting location tools– search engines such as Google– are potentially similar in effect to what SOPA sought, in that they make the linked content disappear– at least, from the search results of the service provider,” said Fewer.
This means those torrent sites you may frequent would be rendered useless, taking all the “free” out of your next season of Dr. Who. And, let’s face it: Canadians are one of the world leaders in piracy. According to a 2009 study by BayTSP, an American-based anti-piracy company, Canada registered 3,342,072 copyright infringements which effected their clients. This figure places us 10th globally, well behind the United States, which ranks fourth with 8,116,302 infringements. However, when you account for our relative population, we’re committing almost 300 per cent more copyright crimes based on individual infringements.
It’s not all bad news on a Big Brother scale, though.
“The due process provisions in Canadian courts offer a substantial protection against misuse that is missing from SOPA,” said Fewer.
In fact, Fewer welcomes some of the more modest provisions.
“Some of these updates are necessary. For example, we need a criminal trademark infringement provision to provide law enforcement with tools to go after counterfeiters,” he said.
Though, there is a great deal of concern being voiced among net-based communities. Fewer relates to these concerns surrounding the new legislation being put forth for ACTA.
“It was written in a manner that IP industry lobbyists would approve. Legislation crafted in such a manner cannot help but be heavy-handed.”
‘Hacktivist’ groups like Anonymous are targeting groups who publicly back ACTA. Anonymous took down Polish government websites in response to their open consideration of joining ACTA. This action has prompted the Polish government to review their stance.
In his November address, Lessig offered these words for those resisting net legislation:
“I don’t believe we will win that war (or better, win the peace and move on) — even if we can win battles like this one — until the more basic corruption that is our government gets addressed…For every thousand hacking at the branches of evil, there is one striking at the root.”
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